Angel's Story
by The Layman
Summary: This is a story about Angel set ten years in the future. It starts out with Max and Fang's child getting kidnapped and Angel going after her. Post MAX, FANG doesn't happen. Warning; mild adult themes *not explicit* and one OC suicide. Please R&R. Also, ignore that chapter 30 is a duplicate of 29; my bad.
1. Chapter 1

Hi, my name is Angel Martinez. I'm sixteen years old, have blond hair, and I have thirteen foot, snow white wings on my back.

I know this might be a little much for you to take in at once, so let me try and explain it to you. No doubt you've heard of my older sister, Maximum Ride. Well, I was only six, about ten years ago, when we (me, Max, Fang, Iggy, The Gasman, Nudge and Total) did all the things she told you about. Sinse then, we have saved the world at least seven other times. Believe me, we've been enjoying the break like you couldn't imagine.

Eventually, we all decided to settled down, (after we were absolutely sure that the world was going to be alright), and we each went our sperate ways. Gazzy and Iggy, (those two really are inseparable,) moved out to LA and hooked up with some old friends of theirs. We don't really know who they are, but knowing Gazzy and Iggy, it's probably someone with a lot of explosives.

Nudge went to California too, only she decided to be an actress. You know what, she's actually pretty good too, and she's really famous to boot. She uses the name Monique Anastasia Monarch. There was a nasty tabloid rumor about her a while back, but it turned out one of her rivals just made it up to discredit her. Seriously, sometimes I think Hollywood is even more dangerous than all those wackoes who used to try and kill us.

Total set the bar higher than any of us did. He invested in the stock market and quickly made a small fortune. Now he lives in France with Akila, trying to research a canine-safe chocolate.

Max and Fang live with Dr. Martinez and Jab Batchelder in Washington DC, and guess what, they got married! That's right, married. It was a beautiful wedding too, Max even wore a magnificent wedding dress and everything, (and let me tell you, she was not to happy about getting into that thing). Two years later they had a little baby girl, and she is the cutest thing EVER! Her name is Frances Kim, but we all just call her Frannie. She has red hair, (much to Fang's delight), blue eyes, and beautiful light brown wings with black and white speckles. She's about six and a half years old now.

As for me, I also live with Jeb and Val and Ella; they adopted me just before Max's wedding. It's been really fun having Ella Martinez for a sister, it also helps when I start to miss Nudge. Did I tell you that Ella is really good at soccor? It's true, she's the best senior player on her college varsity team. In fact, she even set some new school records.

We all still keep in touch, but it's just not the same as it used to be. Oh well.

Anyway, I bet you're wondering why I'm mentioning everybody like this. Well, it's because we all had a... "family reunion" of sorts not to long ago. But it's not just us, we also met some new friends as well. Who are they? Well, heh heh, that would be telling, wouldn't it?

********

"I wanna go and fly!" Frannie shouted excitedly. Seriously, I don't think it was possible for her to get any cuter! I think I'm starting to understand what other people thought when I was her age. I mean, I knew what they were thinking, (because I have telepathy), but it's another thing entirely to genuinely feel the emotions for yourself.

"I'm sorry, Honey, not right now," Max said gently. "It's raining right now, why don't we wait until the rain stops, OK?" Wow, for all the tough-as-nails talk she use to give, she really has become quite the mother. Maybe it was from hanging around a real mother for so long, but I almost don't recognize the tom-boy who would rather die than wear any dress anymore.

"But I wanna go now!" she whined. "It's no fun being inside all day, and I wanna fly, now!"

"Hold the phone there, Pixie," Fang said, calling Frannie by the nickname he gave her, "why don't you go watch 'Katie on the air'. If the rain hasn't stopped by then, we'll just have to go splash in the puddles, OK?"

"Yay!" she cried gleefully, running towards the TV. "Katie on the air" was one of Frannie's favorite TV shows. It's about this girl with her own radio program. When someone calls in with a question, she answers them by going out on the street and asking regular people the same questions. Surprisingly, the questions are all educational in nature, and the first person she asks always knows the answers. Sometimes, they have celebrities answer the questions, and Nudge was even on it one time.

But I'm getting off topic...

"You always have to swoop down to my rescue, don't you?" Max asked once Frannie ran into the other room.

"I guess I'm just a better mother than you are," he said, sitting next to her and giving her a peck on the cheek. Putting his arm around her, he said, "Besides, it stopped raining a few minutes ago, I just wanted us to have a few minutes to our selves." Another amazing transformation. Seriously, I had no idea Fang could be so tender. The most he ever was before was mostly just supportive.

"You're evil, you know that, right?"

"Only on days ending in 'y'," he grinned.

"What are you two doing?" Dr. Martinez asked as she walked in from the kitchen.

"Waiting," Max said, she and Fang staring at each other. "We're going to take Frannie outside after her program is over."

"Just don't stay out too long; it's make your own taco night, and everything is fresh off the vine. In fact, I asked Frannie to help me stir the salsa," she said with wink and a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah," Fang sighed, "if only Max's mothering skills reached as far as the kitchen..."

"Hey!" Max said, slapping Fang across the chest. "I may not be able to cook like Mom can, but there ain't nobody on the face of the planet who can even come close to making cereal the way I can."

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	2. Chapter 2

"Mommy, can we look down there, Mommy, please?" Frannie asked, pointing down at a picturesque lake below them. There was a waterfall and a long, clear river running from it and it had a lot of beautiful flora along the banks in full bloom.

"I guess so," Max said, "as long as it's okay with Daddy." She looked over at Fang, who wearing the only watch in the group.

"I guess it's fine," he said, glancing at his watch, "but only for a few minutes." He banked down and shouted, "Last one there's an old rotten Eraser!"

"Come on, Sweety," Max said, scooping Frannie in her arms, "let's show Daddy we can still kick his butt!" Angling downward, Max suddenly shot towards the ground, going almost twice as fast as she normally flew and flashing past Fang in a streak of green and brown. They were almost to the ground when, suddenly, she dipped up, stalled in the air, and landed with the practied grace of a ballerina.

A second later Fang joined then on the ground.

"You can't resist showing off, can you?" he asked wryly.

"You should know better than to challenge me," she retorted.

"I love it when you do that, Mommy," Frannie said gleefully. "Can we do that again?"

"Maybe some other time, Honey. Right now, why don't you go check out the lake, ok?"

"Ok," she said, and skipped down to bank of the lake.

"She really reminds me of Angel when she was that age, doesn't she?" Max asked as she and Fang dusted themselves off.

"She really does," he agreed. "It almost makes you wonder if she really isn't Angel."

"Oh, heck no," Max said anxiously, "the last thing we need is another six year old who can read minds. Besides," she said in a mock serious whisper, "Angel used to have a terrible potty mouth."

'I heard that', came from in her head.

'Voice, is that you?' she asked.

"What is it?" Fang asked, seeing the wierd look on Max's face.

"I don't know, I might have just heard the Voice," she said. "Which is wierd because I haven't heard a peep out of it for almost five years now."

"That's becuase it's not the Voice," came a voice from above them. They each looked up and saw Angel hovering about twenty feet of the ground.  
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	3. Chapter 3

"Angel!" Max shouted, surprised to see me out here in the middle of nowhere, "where did you come from?"

"I thought you were with Ella at one of her away games," Fang remarked.

"I was," I answered, "but it ended up getting rained out, so they're rescheduling it for next week. I decided to come back early. Anyway, how's Frannie doing?"

"She's good, she's over by the river right now," Max said, pointing over by the mouth of the river.

"She just lost her first tooth the day before yesterday," Fang said. Yup, that's Fang, exuberant and exciting as ever.

The conversation mainly consisted of the usual "How have you been"s and "What's new"s, as well as whatever news we've heard from the rest of the flock. I know I see them at home all the time, but it's really good to just have them all to myself. It may sound selfish, but it reminds me of the old days, when all we had was each other.

Suddenly, we heard "Mommmmmmmmy!" coming from the area where Frannie was playing. Immediately we shot up and ran over to see what happened.

When we got there we saw Frannie was backed up against the bank of the river, staring down the barrel of an assault rifle. The thing holding the rifle was...well, I don't really know what it was. It looked like someone had taken a bunch supermodels and ripped off most of their limbs, replacing them with mechanical ones. Their heads looked mostly normal, unless they looked straight at you, then you could see the other half of their faces, which were also mostly mechanical.

"Don't you dare touch my daughter!" Max shouted, leaping at the robot/model that was closest to Frannie with the uncageble fury of a mother protecting her young. Fang rushed after her. Saying nothing, but with the fury of a feral wolverine.

"Angel, do something!" he shouted, ripping one of the guns out of the robo-models' hands and shooting at the other ones.

I was fighting one by now, so I tried to see if I could get it to give up and go away. You know, with my mind. 'Go away,' I thought as I grappled with it.

It didn't budge an inch.

So apparently they didn't have minds that I could read. No biggie, I can still kick butt on my own, (I made sure to have Max teach me once I was old enough). Breaking the hold it had on me, I came at it with everything I had. It staggered back a ways, probably surprised at my sudden onslaught, then it gained it's footing suddenly and started attacking me!

It was really good to, I had to give it everything I had to keep from getting knocked down. I tried to remember Max's (formerly Jeb's) rules of street fighting, but even that wasn't enough to keep it from landing a kick right to the side of my head.

Thwack!

The kick was so hard that I spun around twice before falling to the ground, hitting my head on a rock in the process. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was Frannie being carried of by one of the robo-divas.  
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	4. Chapter 4

"Angel, Angel wake up!" I heard faintly, right before I felt water being poured on my face.

"Cut it out!" I yelled, jolting upright. Fang was standing next to me looking pretty beat up, and behind him Max was sitting on the ground, sobbing. "What happened?" I asked, looking around anxiously. "Where's Frannie?"

For a moment Fang said nothing. Then, he suddenly turned around, screamed, and kicked a rock into the lake as hard as he could.

"They took her," he said through gritted his teeth, "they took our baby!"

Oh. Em. Gee.

"They took Frannie?!" I exclaimed. Looked around frantically, still not quite believing him. When I saw a teddy bear with wings and a halo lying by the side of the river it finally clicked. It was Celeste, my old bear. I'd given it to her for her third birthday. "Which way did they go?" I asked resolutely. Fang pointed wordlessly. East-southeast.

Immediately I jumped into the air and spread my wings. I was about to shoot up after the robo-dames when I noticed Max for the second time. She looked like she had taken a worse beating than Fang had, I even saw a couple of bloodstains on her clothes.

"Max," I said gently, "are you going to be alright?"

"I don't know," she sobbed, "I just want my baby back."

'I'll get Frannie back, Max,' I thought to her, 'I promise. I won't stop until I get her back for you.' I gave her a hug and turned to Fang. "Take her back to Dr. Martinez," I told him as I took off for the second time. As I headed over the top of the trees I saw Fang pick up Max and fly away with her in his arms.

As I flew off in the direction Fang pointed I couldn't stop thinking about Frannie, how scared she must be right now. It really hurt thinking about that. It hurt even more because I'd felt exactly the same way when the Erasers kidnapped me, so I knew exactally how she felt.

Two minutes later I saw them. They were headed east-southeast, traveling next to a highway, and they were running. Yes, running. Like, with their feet. Really fast. Wow, these things were really hardcore. I mean, even the Erasers had used cars.

"Auntie Angel!" Frannie cried when she saw me coming up behind them. (Thank God she was still alive.) Unfortunately, it also meant the Robo-divas knew I was there too. While I was rethinking my approach strategy, I saw a small, roundish object suddenly flying straight towards me. It kind of looked like a-

"Oh, crap," I said softly, just before the grenade went off three feet away from my chest.

I was really having a bad day.  
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	5. Chapter 5

Good news, eventually I started to come to. Bad news, coming to was about as far as I got. I almost wish I were still unconscious, because my body was just screaming with pain right now.

I was so close, too. If only those stupid Robo-divas hadn't thrown that stupid-

"Ow!" I cried as I clunked the top of my head only something hard. Funny, I remember being outside when I blacked out, and unless a truck had stopped directly on top of me, the only thing that should be over me should be sky.

Come to think of it, if everything I just said were true, it shouldn't be this dark. Even if it were dark, there would be stars and the moon in the sky. The only thing around me in any direction was complete, absolute darkness.

I started to get worried; was I in some sort of cage? Normally the Flock and I try not to get stuffed into cages anymore, (childhood issues, I'll tell you about it some other time), and now here I was, trapped in a-

Suddenly, I heard voices off in the distance. They sounded hushed but hurried, and it sounded like there were only two of them. It...sounded like a male and a female, but I couldn't tell if there was anyone else.

Oh wait, yes I can.

Over the years I've been able to fine tune my mind powers, so now I can do some pretty cool stuff with them now. I can tell exactly how many people are in a room, whether they are male or female, I can even glean a few bits of personal info, like names.

I was right, there were more than two people in the other room. I was able to make out three distinct minds, Only, there was something...different about them, but I couldn't put my wing on it.

Suddenly, the voices stopped. A minute later the door opened and bright light flooded in, blinded me. Hey, mystery solved. I was lying in a bunk bed, and I'd hit my head on the top bunk. I looked around and saw that the room had only the one door.

Three silhouettes stood in the doorway.

"You awake yet?" a growly voice asked.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I was able to see the speaker with more clarity. He was rather tall, had wide shoulders, and looked...hairy?

"Hey, I said, 'are you awake?'," he said again, his voice betraying aggravation.

"Rex," the woman (or girl, I still couldn't really tell) chastised, "she just had a brush with the Cy-leaders, the least you could do is not give her the third degree when she first wakes up."

The third silhouette said nothing.

"Well, if she were awake, than I wouldn't need to," the first voice retorted.

"No, I'm not good enough to eat, and I do not taste like chicken, so don't even think about it, Dog-boy," I said hotly.

"Rex, how many times have I told you; No eating the guests!" the woman (girl) said, exasperated. She and the other silouette glared at him, I could tell.

"What?" he said indignently. "I can't help it, we never have enought food in this joint."

"Yes I can read minds," I said, again taking them completely by surprise, "so you might as well be truthful with me from the start. Now, would somebody like to tell me what I'm doing here, please?"

I guess years of living with Max have taken their toll.

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	6. Chapter 6

"Sir," one of the Cyber-model said, a slight mechanical under tone in her voice, "Theta squad has reported in, they have the package and will be returning at 1600."

The Commodore smiled. At last, after seven long years, the last piece of his plan had fallen into place.

"Status of merchandice?" he asked unemotionally.

"Intact," the Cyber-model said. "Some minor resistance in transit. It was taken care of."

Ok, so they still couldn't elaborate properly, he was working on it. It wasn't like he didn't have the time. At least it would give him something to do while he waited for his "special package" to get here.

He'd actually been waiting longer than seven years, sinse he left Itex to pursue his own research. They were so shortsighted there he couldn't stand it, not to mention all their "perfect" experiments that always had some fatal flaw that lead to their undoing. Did they really think that everything had to be rushed all the time? It was so much better to take your time and iron out all the flaws before hand, and anything that couldn't be fixed was compensated for. Besides, he'd been able to fix almost every single flaw in their creations because he took the time to look for them instead of moving on to another project when the last one seemed to fail. The only reason he would have retired them was because he'd have created something better.

"Sir?" the Cyber-model questioned.

"Hmm," he hummed. "Oh, sorry."

"Are you feeling all right, Sir?" it asked.

"Perfectly," he said, looking up from his desk, "I was just thinking."

"You seem to do that a lot. What do you think about?" Hmm, it's conversational skills were improving.

"Many things, but mostly about the future. About how others have tried and to make the world better, and how I can learn from their mistakes." He paused, then chuckled. "Look at you, you probably couldn't care less about what I have to say on the matter. No, I know you don't, because I didn't program you to care."

"If you say so, Sir." Humor improving as well. If only something could be done about their descriptive abilities.  
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	7. Chapter 7

"So let me get this straight," I said, sitting on a couch (and I use that word loosely) in the den of the three people who I now found myself with, "you guys are recombinant DNA experiment, but you escaped and have been living on your own for a few years now." Are you starting to feel deja vu here, or is it just me?

"That's right," the girl, Felicia, said. "We were basically created and then just forgotten."

"We figured, 'if we're just going to sit here, we might as well try to escape while no ones looking'," Rex added.

"So what's this place?" I asked.

"It used to be an abandoned mine shaft," Felicia said. "We pretty much just moved whatever we could find in here and made it home."

"There's never enough food, though," Rex mumbled. "Sorry about wanting too eat you back there."

"No problem," I said. "I was in kind of the same situation a while ago myself."

"Really? What was it like? Wait, never mind, I want to know how you got mixed up with the Cy-leaders."

"Cy-leaders?" I wondered, not quite getting what he meant. Then it clicked, "Oh, you mean those Robo-divas that attacked Max, Fang and I."

"Robo-divas, hmm, it does sound a lot better then 'cybernetic cheerleader', doesn't it?" Felicia mused distractedly.

Once I got her attention again, I told them how we were attacked by the Robo-divas and how they kidnapped Frannie. After that I told them about my life; what it was like at the School, about the rest of the Flock, about the crazies we went up against to save the world, and anything else I could think of.

"Wow," Felicia breathed, "you life is a real rollercoaster, isn't it?"

"It really is," I agreed. "But enough about me, tell me some more about you guys," I pointed to the guy sitting to her left, the one that hadn't say a single word the entire time I've been here, "starting with him."  
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	8. Chapter 8

"He's Thud. He doesn't say much, but he can make just about anything out of anything else," Felicia said.

"Why do you call him Thud?" I asked, puzzled.

"Well, since he doesn't speak, he usually has to hit something to get our attention."

"With that big hand of his," Rex added, now rummaging through their 'fridge, (which was way to small in my opinion, and in his, I'm sure). "Besides, we can't very well call him 'Bang', can we?" I looked and saw his left hand (which was slightly larger than a normal human hand) was wrapped up with some type of cloth.

"Was he always like this?" I wondered.

"Yes, he was like that ever since he was at..." she paused, a look of sorrowful remembrance crossing her face, "at..."

"I get it," I said, "don't give it a second thought." Wow, they really were like me and the Flock used to be. I decided to change the subject, somewhat. "What about you and Rex, what's your deal? I mean, you both look normal enough."

"Are you sure? People usually get kind of-

"They go frickin' bug nuts," Rex interjected, "especially for me."

"Exactly," Felicia agreed.

'Try me,' I thought to both of them, smirking. Then, I stood up and unfurled my wings as far as they could go. 'You were saying?' I thought again.

"Why not?" Rex shrugged. Suddenly his skin began to crawl. His head, (particularly his nose), began to elongate, his torso and arms began to look heavier, more muscular, and wicked claws began forming on the ends of his hands. All the while he continued to get furrier.

When he was done he looked almost exactly like an Eraser.  
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	9. Chapter 9

Oh Em Gee. It had years since I last saw an Eraser, and many more before I ever saw one again, (hopefully). Needless to say I have very few, if any, good memories with them, so you can imagine the feelings I had swelling up inside me.

I automatically dropped into "paranoid" mode.

"What?" Rex exclaimed inocently, catching my oh-so-subtle murderous glare at him. "What is it?" he asked again.

"You're an Eraser?" I asked curtly.

"What's an...Eraser?" he wondered, looking over at Felicia, who shrugged.

"A recombinant life from, made with lupine DNA who can change into wolf-men and back to humans again," I said, emotionless.

"Ohhhhhh," he said, "that's want he meant by 'fixed all the mistakes'."

"What who meant?" I wondered.

"The-" he started, stopping as if he couldn't remember who he was talking about. Or maybe, he didn't want to remember. "The guy who made us," he finished slowly.

I quickly poked around in his mind, trying find the murderous intent that came standard in every Eraser. Guess what I found.

That's right, nothing.

He didn't have any of the feral hunger the Erasers had. He seemed calmer and, I don't know, more loyal.

"If it makes you feel any better," Rex said uncertainly, still not entirely understanding, "I'm more Siberian Husky than wolf."

"Not really," I said curtly. "What about you," I asked Felicia, "do you turn into a wolf-"

"Dog."

"-dog as well?"

"No," she said as she stood up. She had been wearing a blue and white stripped beanie hat the entire time I'd been here, which she now took off, revealing two cat-like ears on top of head of long, dirty-blond hair. She smiled, revealing much pointier then average canine teeth.

"I also have a tail," she said, lifting up a portion of her denim skirt so I could see the end of a tail sticking out from under it. "That's why I always wear skirts."

THUD!

I must have jumped six feet in the air (which isn't really that much of a stretch for me) when I heard that. I looked over at Thud and saw that he had slammed his large hand on the table. He then began to wave his hands around wildly, as if trying to pantomime something. I didn't understand a lick of it.

"He's wondering why we've all forgotten about him," Felicia interpreted.

"You can understand him?" I asked, surprised.

"Well, we've all lived together for five years now," Rex explained, "and you learn to pick up on what he says real quick."

"Why's that?"

"Well, let's just say he can do more than just tinker."

"And it has to do with his hand," Felicia added.

"Stay clear of the hand, got it," I said with a hint of uneasiness. What was so important about that hand of his that he kept it wrapped? I wanted to find out, but at the same time I felt my life wasn't missing anything without it.

All the same, it was really gonna bug the crap out of me until I found out.  
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	10. Chapter 10

"Is the package here yet?" The Commodore asked anxiously. He had been waiting most of the day, and frankly, he was starting to get impatient.

The first natural born recombinant life from, the unknown and unforeseen pinnacle of Itex. The irony of it all was that most, if not all, of the people who had created them or could properly appreciate them were all gone.

"Soon, Sir," his solitary assistant, Saya Richards, answered. She was the only other pure human being in his little hideout aside from himself, and truthfully, the only person he still considered a friend. She glanced at her watch. "It's almost 1600 now, and you did make the Cyber-models punctual."

"You're right, I did," he said, his tension somewhat relieved. "I still need something to do while I wait, call up the Cyber-019.9 programing."

"Of course," she said, tapping on her Tablet PC. When she found the file she gave him the tablet and he plugged it into his own computer.

Five minutes later a Cyber-model came into his office. "Theta squad has returned with the package, Sir. Would you care to examine the merchandise?"

"Yes I would," he said as he got up from his desk.

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As he looked in the cage he couldn't help but marvel. Those idiots at the School and other such places hadn't even thought to see if any of their creation could mate, and yet...

This child was the very embodiment of chaos theory, proof that anything really could happen in ways nobody could foresee. If his experiment worked, than he, Stephen Commodore, could finally set his master plan into motion.

"Revive it," he told his assistant.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "We don't know how it's body will respond to any of the drugs, especially if they had to use other drugs to sedate her. Besides, we may want to take the opportunity to study it while it's unconscious."

If he had been any other scientist he would have lost his temper and ordered her to revive it regardless of the consequences. Unlike most other scientists however, he appreciated good ideas, even if they weren't his own. Plus, if anything happened to this girl...

"How was it sedated?" he asked Theta squad.

"Pressure point," one said simply. Mental note, do something about elaboration, or lack thereof.

"May I ask why you felt it necessary to do so?"

"It wouldn't shut up," the Cyber-model said, a note of annoyance creeping into it's voice. He smirked.

"Go ahead and revive it, Miss Richards, I don't think there will be any serious problems."  
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	11. Chapter 11

Later that night Rex had scrounged up a meager meal of leftover Chinese food from a junkyard shack a little ways off. After that we all sat on what I assumed used to be a couch and watched reruns of 'Friends'. Thud was tinkering.

Eventually Rex said he was tired and had to get some sleep, and Felicia (Leecy for short) said she was going to patrol the grounds, make sure no one tried to sneak up on us. This left just me and Thud.

"Well, I think I'm going to turn in myself," I said uneasily as I got off the couch and head for what they had designated my room.

Wait.

I turned back to see Thud staring at me intensely. It had sounded like he said 'wait', but he wasn't able to speak, so what had I heard just now.

Don't open your wings.

"Don't open my wings?" I said, puzzled. "Why would I-" then it hit me; even though he wasn't able to speak, I could pick up on his thoughts with my own telepathy.

My epiphany only lasted a second, because I suddenly noticed that something was happening to Thud. His eyes became incredibly intense, to the point where they became slit-like.

Then he held up his left hand. All of a sudden the bondings on it burst, revealing...it. I don't quite know how to describe it, as I hadn't really seen anything like it before. I will, however, try to describe it as best I can.

You know those metal gloves that knights use to wear? It kind of looked like that, only different somehow. Jagged, more wicked. And it didn't look like metal either, it looked more like whatever a bug's exoskelaton is made of. You get the general idea, right?

Anyways, it scared the crap out of me when I saw it. I'd almost reined my heart in when suddenly I realized he'd grabbed my face. I tried to pry him off, but his grip was like a vice, (or Nudges' when she sees the latest pair of trendy shoes). I wanted to scream, but for some reason, I just couldn't.

All the while he continued to stare at me with his intense, powerful, hungry eyes. As he stared at me, I found that I couldn't break away from his gaze. Try as I might, I couldn't look anywhere but at him.

Then, as suddenly as it happened, I was on the floor, gasping for air I didn't realize I needed. As I looked up I saw that he was wrapping his hand again, his eyes returned to normal.

When he was done wrapping his hand he took a remote out of his pocket and pointed to TV. I saw a still of what had happened just a moment before. He pushed a button and the image played forward. I saw him grab me with his demon hand, (catchy name, huh?), and my wings extend. It stayed like that for about three minutes, than my wings folded back up and he released me.

Wait, that didn't just happen. I couldn't have extended my wings for that long, I would have know it, right?

I can control people telepathically, but only when I'm touching them with my hand, he thought. I can even take over their minds when I want, but I didn't.

"Why?" I asked in a voice so small even I had trouble hearing myself.

You needed to know, he tought simply. As he headed for his room I made my own way to the couch (maybe) and plopped down. I stared at the image, trying to make sense of it all. Eventually, I headed to my own room and bedded down for the night. My last thought was, 'Why would I need to know?'.  
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	12. Chapter 12

"Good morning, little one," Commodore said through the bars of the cage that held his trump card, his Ace in the hole, his cornerstone, as she regained consciousness. This little avian-human, trembling in the corner, she truly had no idea how great a roll she would fill. "How are you feeling today?" he asked with casual abandon, as if there were nothing wrong with the world.

"I want Mommy," she sobbed. "I don't like it here; I want my Mommy, I want Daddy, I want Celeste!"

"I'm afraid that's not possible," he said, "your mother's not even here."

"Where is she?" She looked up, a glimmer of hope forming in her eyes.

"I'm afraid I don't know; my minions were only suppose to retreive you. They probably would have killed anyone else they found with you that didn't have the good sense to get away."

This seemed to drain away whatever hope had been forming.

"No," she breathed, unable to accept what she just heard.

"I'm afraid that it's a stro-

"No!" she shouted vehemently. "Mommy's the best, she's better than all your crazy robots! And she'd never die, even if you killed her a million times! In fact, even if she died, she'd still come back here just to kick your butt! She'd kill all your robots and rescue me, because she's the best mom in the world! She'd-AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" she screamed writhing in pain. When she stopped writhing, tears were streaming down her face.

"My, we are quite the fiery little one, aren't we?" he said, a remote suddenly in his hand. "Now I know why my 'robots' brought you in here unconscious. Oh, that bracelet you're wearing," he pointed to his wrist, mouthing "look" to her, "(you can't take it off by the way), it can put out a shock about a hundred times worse than that one. I pride myself on never having used that setting, please don't make me break my record, will you?"

Weakly, she nodded.

"Good. I'll be back later to draw some blood, so be a good girl until then, OK?" He stood up and headed out the door. "By the way," he said as he opened the door, "if you try to exit the cage without someone else opening it first, the shock will be quite painful."

A minute later she was alone.

"Auntie Angel," she whispered, "please hurry."  
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_ More to come soon._


	13. Chapter 13

When I woke up the next morning my head ached and I was covered in sweat. Gross. I also had this weird image in my head, like something from a dream, but I couldn't quite remember it. Maybe there was something in the food I had yesterday. Fortunately, the pain ebbed the more awake I got. I took a shower (Surprise, surprise, they have indoor pluming!) and headed to the kitchen to find some breakfast.

Everyone was already there, eating bowls of some generic fruity cereal.

"Morning," I said groggily.

"Hey there!" Felicia said. She cheerfully looked up from her cereal, but her smile didn't last. "Where'd you get that scratch?" She pointed to my face.

I thouched my cheek and found I had a small scratch that had not been there the day before.

"Huh, must scratched myself in my sleep," I suggested. "It should go away by tomorrow. I heal pretty fast, nothing to worry about."

"That's good," Felicia said taking a bite of her cereal. I sat down next to her and poured myself a bowl. I ate mostly in silence.

"What's the matter, Angel?" Rex asked. "You've barely said a word since you started eating."

"Is something wrong?"

"Well..." I said uneasily, dreading what I was going to have to ask them. I decided to get it over with, "Who created you?"

Stunned silence.

"W-w-why would you want to know t-that?" Felicia asked, trying unsuccessfully to keep her voice steady. Rex said nothing but looked anxious, worried, scared, and any other like adjective you can think of.

"Because I think he's the same person who kidnapped Frannie."

"How do you know?"

"I don't, but it's the best theory I have right now," I pointed out. "I mean, and correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Cy-leaders and Robo-divas the same thing? Besides, I'm betting no one else in the world has them." You have to admit, I'm pretty convincing even without my mind powers.

Either I'd hit the nail on the head or I was completely off the mark, because now it looked like they couldn't even think of a response. Either way, this was not good.

"Come on guys, I made a promise to get my niece back, I need to know the name of the man or woman who did this." I put on my best Bambi eyes for good measure. To date, they have never failed me.

It was working too. I could tell they wanted to say something, but some unseen force prevented the words from leaving their mouths. Well, the two who could use their mouths to communicate.

"I-I..." Felicia stuttered, "I can't. I want to, so much, but I just can't." Her head fell into her hands and she began sobbing. "I'm so sorry!"

"Rex?" I said hopefully.

"I'm sorry Angel," his voice littered with disappointment, "I can't either." He was getting up to leave when-

Thud!  
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	14. Chapter 14

For those of you just tuning in, the sound was "Thud!".

All eyes turned to Thud, who had just slammed his hand on the table. He was waving his hands, pantomiming something I couldn't understand, and held out a folded piece of paper.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"He said, 'read this'," Felicia translated. I took the paper and unfolded it. Written on it (in terrible cursive) was a name. Reilly Stephen Commodore.

I instantly recongnized it.

Reilly Stephen Commodore...hmm. Where had I heard that name before? I know I heard it before, but I couldn't for the life of me remember where. Come on, Ange, I told myself, think. Think. You've heard this name before, you just have to remember where. Come on, think think think thi-

I suddenly remembered.

No, it couldn't be, not after all these years. They locked everyone up, there's no way he could still be....

"Angel, is something wrong?" Rex asked, walking over to my side.

"I know who this is," I said, regaining my composure. "He used to work at the School, back when I was six years old. I had just done a bunch of stupid mazes, and he was going to draw blood. I bit him, he hit me. I remember him thinking, 'How dare this thing bite me'. I thought he was put away with the rest of them when they broke up Itex, I guess they didn't get him." I paused to consider something. "Come to think of it, why are you guys here? I thought Itex had retired all it's genetic experiments."

"We heard about that," Felicia said, "but we weren't created untill a few years after the Itex fiasco."

Thud mimed something.

"He says we were suppose to be the improvements, the upgrades of the old experiments," Felicia translated.

"So that means the Robo-divas are the better version of the M-geeks," I reasoned, "they certainly didn't have any of the old weaknesses when I fought them."

"They really don't," Rex agreed.

"So now what do we do?" Leecy asked. "We know who he is, but where does that get us? I mean, we have no idea where he is now."

"No," I said, an idea forming in my head, "but I know some people who can help us with that." I jumped up and headed for wherever the door was. "Meet me in Florida in two days."

"Wait," Rex said, running after me, "where are you going?" I smiled, thinking of something witty that Max would say. It hit me.

"I'm getting the band back together."  
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	15. Chapter 15

"Thank you for coming in, Miss..." he looked at the folder of the beautiful Brazilian woman sitting across from him.

"Ameillia Ramirez," she said in a slightly accented voice. "Don't worry, I get that a lot."

"I can't image why," Commodore said, tipping an eyebrow. "It surely can't be because people are to busy admiring your beauty." She blushed. Then he got serious, "Now, I've looked over your file here, and it appears that you have all the qualities that we're looking for here at the 'Stephen Commodore Model Agency'. I'd like to ask you some questions about a few of them, all very standard. None of that previous experience junk, I believe you either know how to model, or you don't."

"Of course," she agreed.

'If only they really knew,' he thought.

"Now then, you said here," he handed her a page from her file that he'd highlighted in certain places, "that you do have family members with hereditary or mental illness. Would you please elaborate?"

"Of course. It was my great-uncle. He had dementia." Hmm...mental illness, might prove problematic after fitting. Can't have a Cyber-model that goes crazy, that's just poor judgement.

"Was he a blood relation?"

"No, marriage. He was my great-aunt's second husband."

"Did they have any children?"

"No."

"All right then, next question. You mentioned that you once contemplated suicide?"

"Yes, but the councling I got helped me through that. That was when I was thirteen."

"And you haven't had any such thoughts since?"

"No."

"Good, next question..." He asked her about a few more points on her file, then said, "It looks like everything is in order, so I'd like to officially welcome you on the ol' bandwagon." He stood up and shook her hand. "There's a limo waiting outside to take you to the first shoot. Enjoy the ride." She thanked him profusely and hurried out the the waiting limo.

When he was alone he sat down again, thinking about the soon-to-be Cyber-model he had just found. There was nothing physically wrong with her (visible or otherwise) that would interfere with the cyborging, no mental problems that would prevent her brain from linking with the motherboard that would go in it and go insane as some of his earlier attempts had, she really was a prime candidate. However, prime didn't mean perfect. If only....

He should probably call his assistant and tell her that another candidate was coming down. She'd be giddy with excitement, he just knew. She'd always had a bit of technophilia, but most of the time she kept it under control.

Other than that, she'd been the best assistant, or for that matter co-worker, that he'd ever had. Maybe after his plan was finished he might even ask her to marry him. They'd already lived together for seven-odd years, they were already practically married. He would have even asked her to preform in "married couple activities" with him, but he respected her to much as a woman and he respected his work to much for such distractions.

However, maybe there was a way to say thank you, hmm.  
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	16. Chapter 16

Ah, fresh air. Truth be told, even thought being inside hadn't bothered me, the rank odor had started to get on my nerves. But that didn't matter, because I was in the air now, and nothing in the world was going to put me in a bad mood. Well, at least for the next few minutes.

The first thing to do was find a phone, call Total, and locate the other members of the Flock. I had a phone with me when I ran into Max and Fang, but it was in my purse, and I'd left that on the ground when I went to go save Frannie.

I found one a few minutes later when I passed over a small town. It was next to a diner. I swooped down next to the phone and headed into the diner. OK, I was hungry, so sue me for having to take in 3000 calories a day and not getting a quarter of that in the last two days. I am only human after all, with 2% bird genes.

I ate my fill (with many stares from the other patrons) and headed back to the pay phone outside. I checked my wallet (that, I always kept in my pocket) to see if I had enough to make the call to Total in France. I didn't.

Back when the Flock was still together, Gazzy and Iggy had figured out how to hack pay phones so they wouldn't charge you for the calls. This was done mostly to make prank calls, but it was still a useful skill to know. Sorry, but it's also a skill that stays with the Flock.

After I'd clipped the apropriate wires (so to speak) I dialed the special number Total had given us so we could call him.

"Bonjeur," Total's tiny but cultured voice said on the other end.

"Total, it's me, Angel," I said urgently. I didn't really have time for pleasantries.

"Angel?" he said, surprised. "Oh my god, Angel, I haven't heard from you in ages, how have you been? Never mind that, how has the Flock been getting along without me? I know it must be tough on you guys, not having me there to hold everyone together, off in France with my lady researching dog-safe chocolate. Oh, I think we're on the verge of a breakthrough here. In fact, we'll be testing the latest batch in about to day from now. If this one works, I'll have made an invaluable contribution to Canine-kind everywhere!" That dog could give Nudge a run for her money, couldn't he?

"Interesting," I said, completely uninterested. "Look, I need a favor. Patch me through to the guys, would you?"

"Sure, you planning a little get together?"

"Something like that..."  
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	17. Chapter 17

This was what she lived for, the melding of flesh and machine. For her, it was almost erotic. It gave her this inexplicable ecstasy, almost a euphoria, to do this.

Ever since she, Saya Richards, was a little girl, she was always fascinated by the mechanical. While other girls were playing with dolls, she was playing with Transformers. For Christmas one year, she'd got one of those Lego Mindstorm sets. She'd spent hours building, programing, and rebuilding the different robots she made with it.

She also loved the movies. "I Robot," "Star Wars," Forbidden Planet," "Short Circuit," if it had robots, cyborgs or androids in it, she watched it. She'd even had a crush on Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator movies, as well as Patrick Stuart in Star Trek TNG.

Throughout school, she applied herself greatly to any subjects that would help her get into robotics, so much so that she began to neglect the other subjects. She almost flunked out when she got in a car accident. Her right leg was destroyed below the knee, so she had to get a prosthetic. This made her realize that there was more to robotics that just nuts and bolts.

She went back to school with a vengence, making up for all the subjects she was failing, focusing particularly on human anatomy. She graduated a year early and was accepted to MIT, majoring in applied robotics and prosthetic replacement.

She was there for three years when a man came by and offered her a position as his lab assistant. He said that she would mostly be working with "advanced prosthetics".

She couldn't say yes fast enough.

She thought back to that day, wondering where she would be today if she'd said no. She'd porbably be a surgeon, working in limb replacement, helping hundreds of people a year recover from traumatic injuries.

But it wouldn't satisfy her, she knew that know. She wouldn't get the same thrill that she got from actually grafting machine parts directly to the human body. It was her calling, and she wouldn't trade that for the world.

She also had a secret jealousy for the girls underwent the cyborging. To be able to exist as part machine/part human, it was her one secret desire. She longed for the day when humans would live like that.

Bzzzzzz! The intercom buzzed, Dr. Commodore was calling.

"Yes," she said, jumping to reach the intercom button.

"Miss Richards, prepare the lab, I have another candidate coming down."

"Oh! Yes, Sir, I'll get right on it." She hurried around the room, turning on various pieces of equipment, getting ready to begin the cyborging process again.

Yes, this is what she lived for.  
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	18. Chapter 18

Two days later I was in Florida, waiting for Rex, Felicia, Thud, and the Flock to arrive. It had been too long sinse we were together, I couldn't wait for them to finally get here.

At 3:00 Gazzy, Iggy, and Nudge showed up at the park where we'd agreed to meet. Though honestly, I hadn't been expecting all three of them to show up together.

"Hey guy!" I said, jumping up and giving each of them big hugs.

"Hey Sis," Gazzy said once I got to him, "how've you been doing?"

"Oh, you know, the usual," I said, shrugging. "This is a surprise, though. I didn't expect you guys to all come at once."

"Nudge," Iggy said, "or should I say Monique, was inviting us to opening night of her newest movie, so we were all in same place when you called. By the way, where'd you get that scratch?" You might not known this, but about five years ago, Iggy got part of his sight back. Really! One morning he called us and said that he was able to see in black and white. He can still only see colors if they're again a pure white background and is technically still legally blind, but it's better than nothing, right?

I touched my cheek where I got the scratch.

"Huh," I said, "I'm not sure. I just woke up the other day and it was there."

"That doesn't matter right now," Nudge interjected, "Frannie's been kidnapped! What happened? Is Max alright? Is Fang coming with us? Where are we going anyway? Angel, please tell me that Frannie's alright." Yup, that's our Nudge, the little motormouth.

"Nudge, slow down. Max is pretty broken up about this, so Fang is staying with her for comfort. As for where we're going, I don't quite know that yet, that's why I asked you guys here. If there's anyone who could be of any use finding someone, it's you guys. Besides, I thought my new friends could use some help."

"What knew friends?" Iggy asked suspiciously.

Suddenly, I heard what could only be described as a dying goose, a trumpet solo, and a badly played version of that song the Dukes of Hazzard's car plays. I turned around and saw the most beat up, rickety, out of date, held-together-by-duct-tape-and-God's-will van I'd even seen in my life.

"Them," I said, pointing to the van. I streched out with my mind just to be sure. Yup, it was them.

They all just stared at me like I was crazy.  
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	19. Chapter 19

"What a piece of junk," Nudge said, staring at the junk van coming towards us.

"I'm still legally blind, and even I can see it's worse than that van we stole all those years ago," Iggy said, dumbstruck.

"I think it's cool," The Gasman said, go figure. "So who are these guys anyways?"

"Just some people I met after I lost the trail of the Robo-models," I said, not wanting to go into the details.

"Robo-models?" Gazzy asked.

"The things that kidnapped Frannie," I said.

"Sweet," Iggy said. I could already see his mouth watering at the thought of robotic models. (Gross).

By this time the van had pulled up next to us and Rex, Felicia, and Thud clambered out, practically falling over each other.

"I told you we should have taken the other van," Felicia said, glaring at Rex.

"Hey, it wasn't my fault that it smelled so bad," Rex shot back. "Besides, Thud had already got it running, probably saved a few hours off the trip."

It was then they noticed the rest of us.

"Hi there," Felicia said, embarrassed.

"Gazzy, Iggy, Nudge," I said, gesturing to the gang in the van, "I'd like you to meet Rex and Felicia." Thud! "...And Thud. They helped me out when I lost Frannie's trail."

"No, it was after the Robo-divas knocked you out with a grenade," Rex said.

"You got hit by a grenade!" Nudge shouted.

"Thanks," I said to Rex through gritted teeth, "I didn't want them to know that part." He looked pittyful. I calmed myself down and started again. "Anyways, now that we're all here, we can get down to business," I pulled a map out of my backpack and unfolded it on a table nearby.

"What's that for?" Gazzy asked.

"It's to help us find where Frannie is." I looked over at Gazzy and Iggy, "You guys still have Fang's old laptop, right?"

"Yeah," Iggy said, "but we left it back at the hotel we're staying at. What do you need it for, anyway?"

"I need Nudge to search a name for us," I now turned to Nudge, "Reilly Stephen Commodore."  
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	20. Chapter 20

"Has the subject given you any trouble?" Commodore asked the sentry next to the bird-girl's cage.

"No, Sir," it said, "not really. It tried to escape once when it was given food, but it did not get far." Hmm, the new elaboration program sub-routine was working, very good. He was ready to try the final upgrade. Later...

"I assume you used the shock braclet, right?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Very well, I suppose it couldn't be helped. I'll take it from here, but don't go anywhere."

"Of course, Sir." It handed him the shock remote and took a position by the door.

"And call Miss Richards, tell her to come to my office."

"Would it not be better to tell her to come here?" the Cyber-model asked.

"No," he said, "I won't be staying long myself, my office will do fine."

"If you say so, Sir." It tapped a spot on it's chest, linking it to the rest of the active Cyber-models on the base. The gesture wasn't really necessary, since they could activate the link automatically when they needed to send messages. It was purely for his own personal benefit, to let him know that the link was working. If they didn't tap their chest, there was a problem. A very useful feature.

He turned back to the cage, the bird-girl holding her knees and rocking back and forth.

She must be miserable, he thought, locked up in a cage like that, thinking that she'll never see any of people who loved her again. He almost feel sorry for her.

A minute later he got up and fished around in his pockets. He found a chocolate bar he was saving for later and tossed it through the bars of the cage.

"Here," he said, "eat this." The bird-girl looked up at him with wide eyed astonishment.

"Really?" she said in a small voice.

"Really, I'm not going to eat it anyways," he said reassuringly. She just looked at it for a minute, then looked back up at him. "Don't worry, you're not going to get skocked." Then he turned around and walked out the door, tossing the remote the Cyber-model as he passed.

"I think Miss Richards will like what I'm going to propose," he said to himself as he made his way to his office, "very much."  
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	21. Chapter 21

"Who's that?" Nudge asked when I told her the name.

"He's a scientist who used to work at the School," I said.

"I thought they locked up all the wackoes years ago," she said, trying to wrap her mind around that info.

"Maybe the School let him go before they got shut down," Gazzy suggested.

"Maybe they did, but that's not important right now," I said, my tone not giving room for discussion. "What's important is that we find Frannie and stop the supreme weirdo that did this to her. Gazzy, you go back and get the computer," I said, taking charge. He nodded and took off.

"What about me?" Iggy asked.

"You and Thud start assessing our arsenal. Once we find this guy, were gonna need all the edge we can get against the Robo-models." Iggy's face lit up with glee. Whether it was because he got to play with explosives or because he was thinking about the Robo-models, (ew), I couldn't tell.

"Aye aye, Skipper," he saluted.

"Nudge, you and me are going shopping." Her face practically began to beam pure sunlight when she heard that. "For food, not clothes," I said, and sunlight began to fade.

She gave me the saddest, cutest possible face she could and said, "Pleeeeeaaaaase!"

"Fine," I exasperated, "but only one store, and you can't buy anything that doesn't taste good." She seemed happy with this arrangement.

"What about us?" Felicia asked, motioning to herself and Rex.

"I need you guys to stay here. Rex, you can see pretty far, right?"

"I guess so," he said uncertainly.

"Good, you'll be the lookout, keep an eye out for Gazzy coming back."

"Rodger!"

"Leecy, I need you over by Iggy and Thud."

"But, why?" she asked. "Thud's always been the technical one, I can't even set the clock on the VCR."

"I need you there because you're Thud's translator, right?" I explained. "I need you to keep the peace between those two while they work, got it?"

"OK, I got it."

"Good, I see you guys in a little while. Come on, Nudge."  
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	22. Chapter 22

'Why did he have to see me in his office now,' Saya thought as she wait for Dr. Commodore to get there, 'I was right in the middle of the cyborging. Sure, the rest of it was all hands-free, but still.'

Just then Commodore walked in. She couldn't put her finger on it, but somehow he seemed...different. More, at ease. She stood up.

"You wanted me for something, Doctor?"

"Yes, I did. And neither of us are working right now, Saya, there's no need to be so formal, please sit down." He'd called her by her first name. He hardly even called her that, even when they were both on break.

"Okay than, Stephen, what did you need?"

"I've mostly been thinking," he said, "about us."

"Us?"

"Yes. Soon it will be time to begin the first phase of my plan. I told you about it, right?"

"I don't think so."

"Oh," he mused, "I thought I had. Oh well. Anyway, it means that we have to stop full production of the Cyber-models." She was crestfallen. Working on the Cyber-models was one of the best things about working with Commodore, and now he was just going stop. She didn't understand.

"But, why?"

"We've built more than enough for our purposes, there's no need to make any more," he pause, noticing how sad she looked, tears forming in her eyes. "I'm really sorry," he said tenderly taking her hands. "You've been the best assistant, co-worker, and even friend that I've had these last seven years, maybe in my life. You've given so much of your self without so much as a single complaint, I want to give you something in return. What would you like? I think I can guess, but I want you to tell me anyway."

"You can?" she said, surprised. 'Did he really mean it,' she thought, 'could I really get anything I wanted?'

"We've been working together for seven years, I saw the signs. Well?"

"There is one thing," she said, begining to tremble, violently. The thought of having her lifelong secret desire granted almost to much to bear. "I w-want to be machine."

"I thought so," he said, He opened a panel on his desk and pushed the concealed button. A door opened up on the far side of the room.

"Where does it lead?" she asked.

"It goes to my private lab, one I built secretly over the years. Inside is my original automatic cyborging machine. " He got up and stood by the newly opened doors. "Shall we?"

She tried to follow him, but she found she was to excited to even move.

"A little help, please?" she asked sheepishly. He walked over and helped her out of the chair.

"How about we go together?" he asked. She answered him by throwing her arms around him and kissing him. Passionately, tenderly. It was the truest moment of her life. When she was done she layed her head on his chest and closed her eyes.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I don't how I'll ever repay you."

"You don't have to," Stephen said, "it's a gift."  
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	23. Chapter 23

"We're back!" I said, landing next to Gazzy and Rex.

"Hey!" Gazzy exclaimed. "Where were you anyway?"

"Shopping!" Nudge said, holding up the bags she was carrying.

"Thought we all deserved a last meal before we went into battle," I said.

"Pleasant thought," Rex said wryly. "What'd you get us, anyway?"

"A bunch of stuff," I said as I set the bags down on the table. "What do you like on your sandwich?"

"Everything!" Gazzy said, eyeing the food hungrily.

"I'll make mine myself," Rex said, unpacking. "I'm a bit particular how it's made."

"Fine," I sighed, "I'll go check on Iggy and Thud. Nudge, make sure these two leave some stuff for the rest of us."

"Sure," she said, turning to make her own sandwich. I walked over to the van where I'd left the two brainiacs before I left. I saw Felicia laying on top of the van.

"What are you doing up there?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said lazily. I noticed the door was closed.

"Are they alright in there?" She stood up and jumped to the ground, landing with perfect grace and poise. Wow.

"They're fine. In fact, they don't even need me anymore."

"Really?"

"Yeah. There must be some sort of unspoken language between fellow technicians or something."

"Must be," I agreed. "Let's see what they're doing in there, shall we?" I opened the sliding door and saw Iggy and Thud each sitting in piles garbage. At least, it looked like garbage to me. "What are you guys doing?' I asked, staring at the junk on the floor.

"Oh, hi Angel," Iggy said, not looking up from whatever he was tinkering with, "we're working on an idea that should give us an edge against the Robo-models."

"That's great," I said, still having no clue what he was doing. "What is it?"

He held it up, "It's an electrified dagger. Get them with one of these," he made a stabbing motion, "and they'll drop like a rock in deep water."

"That's good, I think. Anyway, food's here, what do you like on you sandwich?"

"Lots o' meat." Thud pantomimed something, "He's fine with anything as long as it has pickles." Huh, I guess they really could understand each other, who knew?  
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	24. Chapter 24

Later that night, after we'd all eaten our giant sandwiches, we gathered around the computer to look for Reilly Commodore. Unfortunately, the results were not promising. There were very few hits that fell into the correct age range (plus ten years). Most were either to young or to old.

"Guys," I said, "this isn't working."

"No freaking duh!" Iggy said with his usual tact. "We need to try something different."

"Well, he has a middle name, doesn't he?" Nudge said, clearing the search engine we were using. "Why don't we put that in as well?"

"You guys try that," I said, getting up, "I'm going to walk around a for little bit." I walked over to Felicia, who was still sitting on the van, one leg hanging over the side. "Hey there," I said. "You know the party's over there," I pointed to group huddled around Nudge and the computer.

"I know," she said, "I just needed some time to think." She looked at the sky and sighed longingly.

"About what?" I asked.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Could you tell me what Iggy's like?" What was Iggy like? Boy, did I have a list.

"Well," I started, "he and Gazzy are best friends, always have been. He's a bit of a pig, both emotionally and physically. (If you need any proof of that just look in the van.) He really likes to look at girls, though I guess that came from being blind for most of his life. Why do you ask?" She pulled her legs into her chest, looking a little embarrassed.

"I think I'm in love with him." Whoa, this was totally a shocker. I had absolutely no clue that she felt like that. I mean, I probably should have seen something like this coming from a while. We're all lookers in the Flock, so I can understand why she would feel like that. On the other hand, it might also just be hormones. Better make sure...

"Really?"

"Uh huh. Ever since I first met him today, I've just had these feeling inside me. You know what that's like, right?" Boy, did she have me pinned there. I'd had some petty crushes way back when, but that's all they were, petty crushes. I'd never had a full-on, bleeding heart type romance like Max did.

"I think I have a pretty good idea," I said, playing it safe.

"It's just...I don't know, everything about him makes feel like I'm melting. His eyes, that way he brushes his hair out of his face, the cute little squeak he makes when he chuckles, everything. And he's really caring and kind-hearted too." Gulp!

"So you really think you love him?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Even with his wings?"

"That's the best part about him," she said, certainly. "It means he'd know exactly how I've felt all my life and he wouldn't think twice."

"Then tell him."

"What?"

"Tell him how you feel about him. If you love him so much, don't you think he should know?"

"No, I really couldn't."

"Sure you could," I reassured her.

"But what if he thinks I'm just being an idiot when I ask?" Oi, I really had my work cut out for me.

"Look," I said sternly, grabbing her shoulders, "any guys in the world would be lucky to have you for a girlfriend. Besides, he pretty much grew up blind, he's learned to take what he can get." OK, maybe that didn't quite come out right, but I'm sure she got the point.

Just then Nudge shouted to us that she'd got a hit. We ran over to see what all the comotion was about.

"What'd you find?" I asked, looking over her shoulder, anticipation bubbling inside me. "The 'Stephen Commodore Model Agency'? That's a bit anticlimactic, isn't it? I thought it would be something more scientific."

"I thought so to," she said, "but it's the closest location that came up. Beside, the owner fit the description we're looking for perfectly, and...," she pulled up another window, "check out this article." It was a piece from a local newspaper a few years back on the Agency.

"'Models Dissapearing?'" I read. "Wow, this guy must have some really sick fantasies."

"Or an army of really attractive killer cyborgs," Gazzy pointed out.

"Good point. Ok everyone, into the van, let's get this rescue party started!"

"Angel," Iggy said bluntly, "stop using Max's old jokes, that don't work anymore."  
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	25. Chapter 25

We all piled into the junkyard van, (with many wills written out as we did), and headed for the model agency, and hopefully Frannie as well.

About ten minutes later, (give or take a few wrong turns), we arrived at a small colonial house at the bottom of a large hill in the middle of nowhere. The house had a tower on it and an attached garage, and that was it. There was nothing else remotely interesting or suspicious about it. Just another ordinary house.

"Is this it?" I said, dumbfounded.

"Maybe it's bigger on the inside," Gazzy suggested, "like in 'Doctor Who'."

"Gazzy, stuff like that doesn't happen in real life; it's call science 'fiction' for a reason," I said incredulously.

"Angel," he said slowly, "look around you. You're surrounded by mutants, that stuff happens."

"You know what I mean." I was starting to get frustrated. "Let's just look around the house, maybe there's a trapdoor that leads to an underground bunker or something."

We searched the entire house from top to bottom, twice. We even searched his office, but all we found there were the case files for the models. Iggy spent lots of time in there.

Eventually we made our way to the garage. It was longer than a normal garage, and we found the reason for that when we went inside.

"Whoa, nice limo!" the Gasman breathed. "Totally top of the line."

"You're right," Iggy agreed, "this is much better than what we worked on out west."

"You guys work on cars?" Nudge asked, curious about what they actually did since they moved to L.A.

"Something like that," the Gasman said, popping the hood.

Iggy meanwhile had slide himself into the drivers seat and was running his hands over the dashboard. "One of the Ghosts has work at an auto repair shop, he taught us how to fix cars, motorcycles, you name it."

"Who are the Ghosts?" asked Rex.

"Just some friends of ours in Los Angeles." Then he noticed the way Nudge and I were glaring at him. "Hey, asked Fang about it, it was his idea anyways."

"I'll be sure to. In the mean time; Leecy, Rex, Thud, you guys find anything?"

"Not a thing, this place is has even less in it than the house did," Felicia said from the back of the car. "There's nothing here but the car and some tools."

"Yeah, this bites," Rex said. "At this rate we'll all be old geezers by the time we find your cousin, Angel."

"Don't remind me," I said. But he did have a point, we were taking longer than I anticipated to find Commodore. Ok, I got excited when Nudge found the name near us, I admit that. I should have realized that we probably weren't got to find her at the first place we looked-

CLANG! KRrrreeeeeeeeee!

Remember when told you I jumped about six feet at an unexpected noise? Well, I think I just added a couple of inches to that record. Seriously, the noise just came out of nowhere.

"Gazzy!" I said, my eyes darting right to him once my brain calmed my heart down.

"Don't look at me," he threw his hands up, "I didn't touch anything on the engine, I swear!"

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. Besides, the engine's all electric anyways, I don't know squat about electric engines. That's more of Iggy's thing." Iggy!

I opened the driver's door and Iggy looking around, trying to figure out what happened. "Iggy..."

"I don't know what happened, ok! I saw a button marked 'open doors', thought it was to open the doors on the limo and tried it out." Ok then.

"Did you get psykic powers and not tell me?" I asked, surprised that he answered the question before I asked it.

"No," he said, "but that would be the first thing I'd ask me if it happened."

Crash!

I looked over and saw Thud standing next to a broken window. He was pointing outside. I looked out the window and saw that a large door had opened up in the hillside. Score!

"Guys, I think we found it," I said triumphantly.

"How do you know it's this one?" Gazzy asked.

"Well, how many people do you know who have giant, secret doors that swing out of hillsides?" Hah! I had him.

"Batman." Crap, didn't think of that.

"Never mind," I said, "let's just get in there and rescue Frannie."  
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	26. Chapter 26

We all left the garage and headed down the tunnel Iggy discovered in the hill, wondering what was going to be on the other end. The tunnel seemed to go on forever, going on and on into the darkness. We couldn't see the other exit, and whenever we tried to shine our flashlights ahead, the beam was always swallowed up by the darkness.

And there you go, poetry by Angel.

Okay, so it's not William Wordsworth, but I am only sixteen. It's not like I've ever had the inspiration; flying above the clouds, looking down at the world, seeing life as one big picture instead of as a one-way road, ever going on...

Sorry, where was I?

Oh, right.

"How much farther is it?" asked Nudge. "We've been walking so long I think my blisters are starting to get blisters."

"I don't know, Nudge," I said.

"We should have taken the limo," Rex sighed. Gazzy and Iggy grunted in agreement.

"Do you sense anything up ahead?" Felicia asked before I could snap at the guys out of annoyance. I stretched out with my mind.

"Not a thing," I said, "just the seven of us here."

"To bad the rest of us don't have wings, we'd probably get to the end much faster if we did." Actually...

"Hmm, that gives me an idea. Iggy, fly ahead and see how much farther this thing goes."

"Sure thing," he said, flying down the tunnel.

"Give us a signal when you get to the end!" I shouted after him as he disappeared into the darkness ahead. Eventually he got so far ahead that we couldn't even see the light from his flashlight anymore.

We walked for another minute or so before I saw a light suddenly apear further down. You want to know how far down?

The Flock has raptor vision, so we can see much farther than normal humans can. Say a someone is standing at the end of a road, looking at a street light at the other end. While he could make out the lights flashing, we could see the color of the lights, as well as the chipped paint on it. Got the idea? Good. Want to know how far the light was?

It had just barely scratched the edge of our sights.

The closer we got the more we could see that it wasn't actually the end of the tunnel.

"You guys see that?" I asked the non-avian members of the group.

"I think so," Felicia said. "How far is it?"

"Still pretty far. How about you guys?" Rex and Thud both shook their heads. About five minutes later we could all see the light clearly. Five minutes after that we could see someone standing in the light, waving. It might have been Iggy, but he (or she) was standing behind the light, so it looked as if there was a black cutout of someone standing there instead of the actual person.

Then the light started moving. No, the light wasn't moving, someone was moving the light. You're thinking, "Did she just repeat the same thing twice?". Trust me, I didn't. It stopped moving, and two long shadows appeared on either side of it.

Wings. To my knowledge, (and correct me if I'm wrong), only seven people on the whole planet have wings on their backs. It had to Iggy, no question.

"Hey guys," he called, "I found the end!"

"Great," I said when we got there, "where is it?"

Clang clang! "Right here," he said, tapping the wall he was leaning on with his knuckles. Ohhhhhh....

"Is there a control panel or something around here?" I felt around for something that might be a panel or a switch or a lever or something.

"Nope," he grinned.

"Then how are we suppose to get in there if we can't open the door?" I pratically shouted.

"We use the other one," he said, pointing past my shoulder.

"What other-" I said, turning around to see what he was pointing at. Behind me was a door, white, with the paint starting to chip. It had a little window in it, but it was to grimy to see through. "Well, that's convenient. Ok everyone, let go!"

Hang on Frannie, Aunty Angel's coming.  
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	27. Chapter 27

Inside, we stared in awe at the size of the cavern we'd just entered.

"Wow," Gazzy breathed, "you could fit a parking garage in here."

"How Far did we go?" asked Rex.

"I don't know," I said, "but we must a good deal underground. There's no way someone could build something like this on the surface and not have anyone notice."

"This is almost just like one of one of my movies," Nudge said.

"Which one?" Rex asked.

"Guys, focus. You'll have plenty of time to talk about your movies later," I said mostly to Nudge, who was more likely to go of on a rant and forget the mission.

"Do you sense anything?" Iggy asked.

"Yes," I said, closing my eyes and concentrating. "There's at least two people, I think one of them is Frannie. And one...something." I opened my eyes, and saw the confused looks on everyone's faces. "I can't explain it, it's not like anything I've felt."

"Never mind that for now, let's go find Frannie!" the Gasman said. "Which way?"

"This way," I said, pointing to another door off to the side. It wasn't locked, so we just went right in. On the other side was a hallway, like the kind you find in hospitals and such. Nothing wrong with an innocent little hallway, right? Not if you worst childhood memories involved being lead down the same hallways to have sadistic experiments performed on you, it's not.

Needless to say we were all feeling uneasy now.

"This place gives me the creeps," Nudge said as we walked down the hallway. "It reminds me too much of the School."

"Me to," Gazzy agreed. He looked back at the three "mammals", "How about you guys?"

"We were created here," Felicia said, "we're probably about as comfortable as you are right now."

"Probably more so," Rex said.

"Nice going, Gasser," Iggy said with his usual non-sarcastic tact. "Hey Angel, how much farther?"

"Just around the next...corner," I said just as I rounded the corner up ahead. Staring me straight in the face was not another long corridor, but a solid, faceless wall. There was a door on either side of the hall, but nothing after them. It had just...stopped.

On top of that neither of the doors had Frannie in them. I was so mad; we'd come all this way, gotten this close, and the thing that stopped us was not A crazy madman's super-monster or some punk with a gun but a freakin' wall!

"Aghhh! This sucks!" I shouted, taking a swing at the wall. I knew it wasn't really going to do anything constructive, (the wall being an inanimate object and all), but I needed to take my rage out on something.

"Angel, calm down, the wall's not really there."

"Easy for you to say," I snapped at Iggy, "you're still half blind! You couldn't even see your own hand in front of your face." Bit much? Sorry about that, I got caught up in the moment.

"No, I mean it's not really there." To prove his point he stepped forward and touched the wall. His hand went straight through it. "You know how I can't really see projected images clearly? Well, that's what this is. It's a projection, a hologram." A hologram?

Well that changed everything.

I stepped forwards experimentally, and my foot passed right through the wall. I suddenly burst forward down the corridor, not waiting for the others to follow. I stopped about ten doors down, yanking one of them open. There wasn't much in there; some beeping monitors, a few beakers and a syringe on the table, and a small cage in the middle.

Inside the cage was the small, shaking, whimpering form of Frances Kim Martinez. She was laying on the floor, facing away from the door.

"Frannie!" I said, immediately dropping down next to the cage. She turned her head, and her face immediately lit up with recognition.

"Auntie Angel!" she shouted gleefully, crawling over to give me a hug as fast as she could.

"Are you alright?" I asked, slipping into "maternal mode". "What happened, what did they do to you?" She looked all right, but I had to make sure.

"They didn't really do anything to me," she said in a small voice, "they just took my blood and left me alone." By this time the others had caught up with me and were filing into the room. When Frannie saw the new guys she shrank back a little.

"It's alright," I said soothingly, "they're good guys. They helped me find you." She seemed to brighten up when she heard this.

"Hi there," Felicia said, kneeling next to the cage as well.

"Hi yourself," she retorted, a mischievious glint in her eye. Wow, she really was Max's kid.

"OK, there'll be plenty of time for introductions later," I said hurriedly. "Right now, we should get out of here before any of those Robo-models get here." Everyone nodded in agreement. I looked over at Iggy, "Do you think you can pick the lock?"

"Can bird kids fly?" he asked in return, and knelt beside the lock. He slid his hands over the lock, feeling every inch of it. "Hmm," he said, "West & Smithers 'Protector' JL189-Y." He scoffed, "Piece of cake," and closed his eyes, starting to delve into the lock with his fingers. He'd been blind for most of his life, so he always worked better in the darkness. He smiled a few second later. "Got it," he said triumphantly.

Nothing happened.

"Iggy..."

"Not done yet," he said impatiently. "Gazzy, give me a G-sharp seven."

"Sure," he said, "any particular instrument you prefer?"

"Doesn't matter, you could even toot it if you want." He stopped, suddenly realizing what he had just said. "On second thought, don't toot it, for all our sakes."

"Huh?" Frannie said from inside the cage.

"These locks have an interesting safety feature," Iggy said, taking pity on Frannie's ignorance, "If you whistle the right tone, it'll unlock on it's own, no key. Normally you need a remote to use that feature, but I can jimmy it so you don't need to. Let 'er rip, Gazzy." A minute later the door of the cage swung open and Frannie jumped into my arms.

"Thanks for comming, Aunty Angel."

"Any time, Sweety." She looked up at me innocently.

"Can I take this off now?" She held up her arm to show me the large, thick bracelet she had on, her face completely straight. "I don't want to get shocked anymore."

"They put a shock coller on you!" I said, outraged. I looked over at Iggy again, "Please tell me you can get this off."

"I can," he said slowly, "but it might take a little while. We brought the laptop, right?" He received six embarrassed glances.

"I think we left it in the van," Rex offered. Iggy rubbed his temples.

"A cellphone?" he asked wearily.

"I have one," Nudge said, fishing one out of her purse. Good ol' Nudge, always prepared in times of crisis.

"Thanks," he said, ripping the phone out of her hands and tearing the back off.

"I-I-I paid over a hundred dollars for that," she stammered.

"I'll make it up later," he said, only half interested. He played with it for about a minute, reconnecting wires. "This would be so much easier if I could solder it," he mumbled. "Almost there...got it." he then turn it back over and began punching some numbers on the keypad. An instant later the shock cuff dropped to the floor.

"Yay!" she said, giving me a huge bear hug. I returned the hug in kind.

"How about we go see Mommy and Daddy now, ok?" I said. "They're probably pretty worried about you."

"Ok, but can we get something to eat? I starving."

"Sure," I chuckled, "anything you want."

"Well come on then," Gazzy said, "you heard the little lady, let's get the heck out of here." He was at the door in two seconds. "Hey, I'm hungry too."

That was all the incentive we needed. We headed out the door and were soon back at the entrance to the tunnel, only this time the giant door was opened.

"Trap?" I asked the group, my danger sense off the scale.

"Trap," Nudge said, echoing everyones' feelings in the matter. We turned around to find that we were surrounded by hundreds of the Robo-models. Crap, they were almost impossible to beat one-on-one, and now there were more than I cared to count. Math may be more Iggy's thing, but I can still see that all this adds up to us not escaping unless someone can think of something clever in the next two minutes.

Suddenly the sea of deadly killer cyborgs parted and the evil "Moses" stepped through.

"I must say," he said in a perfectly calm, unemotional voice, "I am rather surprised to see you all here." He looked straight at me. "Especially you, Subject Eleven, I thought I'd seen the last of you after I left the School."  
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	28. Chapter 28

"My name isn't Subject Eleven," I hissed, drawing Frannie close. She clenched my leg, "it's Angel, and I could say the same thing about you, Reilly. I thought you were put away with all the other weirdos when they took down Itex."

"I porbably would have been," said evenly, "if I hadn't disassociated myself from them before hand. Besides, they got what they deserved."

"How so?"

"They were much to impatient," he said, his voice calm but with the air of someone who believed they were in complete, absolute control of everything. "Why do you think it was as easy as it was for your little band of mutants to defeat a mega-corporation that vastly outnumbered you? It's because there was always some exploitable flaw in your enemy for you to take advantage of. Robots with some weak point that instantly shut them down, the 'ultimate being' unable to track objects well, they were always rushed into completion without first correcting the fatal flaws. To them, they didn't have to build a better mousetrap, they just had to make it good enough."

"So now you've built a better mousetrap?"

"Not just a better one," he corrected, "I've built the ultimate one, not to put to fine a point on it." He started to walk around us. "You see, my Cyber-models are superior to their predecessors in every way. Their decision making autonomy is parallel to, if not greater than, a human being's. Their reflexes are unmatched. They have no weak points. They'll outlast any opponent in battle because they're programed to stay alive above all else. But above all, they have no minds that are susceptible to external manipulation, you helped with that in a small way."

So that's why I couldn't control them.

"Still, there was only one thing missing. Fortunately, I was able to crack that barrier." He gestured for one of them to come forward, and an attractive young woman in her mid-twenties appeared next to him.

This was not what I was expecting.

"This is my assistant, Saya Richards."

"Pleasure to meet you," she said, bowing.

"She's your assistant?" I asked, feigning disbelief. I turned to her, "How did you ever land a job with this jerk?"

"He recruited me out of college," she drew in close to him, "it was the best decision I ever made."

"She's been the most loyal, hard-working assistant I've ever had, she's never even complained once the entire time I've know her."

"It's true, working with Stephen has been the best experience of my life."

"Bet the pay must suck," Iggy whispered to Rex and Gazzy.

"On the contrary," Commodore said, overhearing them, "Miss Richards has been extremely well paid for her long service. In fact," he looked down at Saya, "I think it would be enlightening if you showed the sarcastic, blind one how well you've been paid." He pulled out a gun from inside his lab coat. "Try not to make it lethal."

She took the gun and nodded. Then, in blink of an eye, (so fast that even our eyes barely saw it,) she aimed it at Iggy's shoulder and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

Iggy jerked backwards, knocked back be the force of the shot.

"Iggy!" Nudge shouted, rushing to Iggy's side. She knelt down and fished out an Ace bandage and some gauze, then she tore his shirt and began to wrap his shoulder.

"Don't bother," he said, wincing a little from the pain, "it's not as bad as it looks." Right, suuuure.

"You got shot clean though your shoulder," Gazzy said, "probably through your wing as well, you're letting her fix you up." Way to go, Bro!

"Yeah, this is no time to start acting like Fang," Nudge said as she continued to bandage him up.

Meanwhile, Felicia was just standing there, trembling with rage.

"Leecy," I asked, "you alright?" I reached out to touch her arm but she just shrugged me off.

"Nobody. Hurts. Iggy," she growled, tears running down her face. Then, without warning, she leaped at Saya and swipped at her with the uncontrollable fury of an angry tiger. Wow, she must like Iggy more than I thought.

For the most part Saya avoided Felicias' attacks. In fact, the fight dragged on for at least two minutes and she still handn't landed a blow. If they kept at it they might both drop from shear exhaustion alone.

"Should somebody help her?" Rex asked.

"Be my guest," I shot back. To tell you the truth, Leecy was kind of scaring me right now. Maybe that was the bird genes talking.

Suddenly I heard what sounded like flesh ripping. (If you're trying to imagine what that sounds like, trust me, you're not missing out on anything in life.) Leecy had just landed a blow to Sayas' cheek, and it looked like she'd just torn off a mess of her skin. It was still stuck in her nails. Gross.

Saya was just standing there, waiting for Leecy to make a move. The left side of her face was almost completely missing, and where there normally would have been flesh and muscles, there were just gears and flashing lights.

She was a Robo-model too.

And it was in that moment of surprise that she struck.

BANG!

She fell down to one knee as the bullet pierced her leg. Nudge rushed over and pulled her next to Iggy. She then began to bandage up her leg.

"You'd do well to just give up," Commodore said, "you have absolutely no chance of beating her. She's more advanced than any of the previous Cyber-models in every way."

"You turned your own assistant into a Cyber-model!?" I exclaimed, rather disgusted at the very notion, to say the least. "What kind of sick weirdo does that to his own assistant?!"

"You'd be surprised how many people I've known that would," Comodore said. "But you misunderstand, I haven't forced Miss Richards to do anything. She volunteered for it, and I was happy to oblige her."

"That's even worse," I said.

"Is it," Saya asked, "is it really? For machine and flesh to be together, I can't think of any greater honor, any greater perfection. I've wanted this my whole life, and I'm glad to be like this now." She looked at me with sad accusation, "Why do you condemn perfection?" Geez, where do they find these wackjobs? Well, misery does love company...

"Can't you see he's manipulating you?" I asked, delving into my bag of last ditch tricks. OK, it was a long shot, but I was running out of arguments fast.

"I'm afraid that just isn't possible, Miss Angel," Commodore said in an uncharacteristically gentle tone. "You see, I never installed a way to directly control my Cyber-models here, so there is no way for someone else to take control of them and turn then against me. Only Miss Saya can direct the other Cyber-models, and she is programed for my protection above all else."

This was getting nowhere fast. And he still hadn't answered the question that had been burning in my head sinse this whole freaking ordeal started.

"But why did you kidnap Frannie?" I asked. "What were you planing to do with her?"

"Oh, her part in this has ended," he said. Ok, I wasn't expecting that, "I've already gleaned all the data I could."

"But why?" I persisted.

"Don't you realize what she is? She's the first naturally born human-avian hybrid, it's only natural that I should be curious about such a phenomenon. Her DNA could potentially be invaluable to modern science. But you can take her now, I can find out all all the rest from her clones."

I don't need to tell you that I don't really like clones that much. Max, Nudge and I each had clones of us made a while ago, and it was kind of creepy.

"So you're just going to let us take Frannie and walk out of here right now? I don't buy it."

"You're right, I'm not going to let you leave, you know too much for me to do that."

"Because you just told us," I pointed out.

"Again you misunderstand. You know that I exist, where I am. If I let you go there's a strong chance that you're going to come back and try to stop me."

"Like heck we will."

"However, there is one of you that I'll be able to use. Come here for a moment, Macross." Macross? Who the heck was he talking about?

I got my answer a second later when I felt Thud brush passed my shoulder.  
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	29. Chapter 29

I just stared, my eyes as wide as dinner plates. I'd seen someone die in front of me before, too many times too many, but it's still pretty horrific. I also kind of felt sorry for him. Gun wounds are horrible, and no one should ever have to die from them.

Eventually I looked up and saw Rex, Felicia and the Flock standing there, stunned expressions plastered on their faces.

"Is it over?" Rex asked uncertainly.

"Not yet," I said, glancing over at Saya. She was still standing there, her gun still pointed at the place where Commodore had been, "we still have to figure out what to do with her." I walked up to her, "Hey, are you all right?"

"Angel, be carefull," Gazzy said.

"Don't worry, I'll be alright," I said, turning to Gazzy. I turned back to Saya, "Are you OK?"

"N-no," she said meekly.

I touched her with my mind, trying to get a better picture of what was going on in her head. It was the strangest thing I'd ever felt. It was like there were two different halves, one being her human mind and the other being the robot half, but it felt as if they were both the same thing. It was like they were the same, but also like they were fighting with each other. Really weird.

"I was suppose to protect him, suppose to prevent him from dying, and now...." he voice trailed off. She put the gun to her head, "He gave me so much, I don't know how I'll ever forgive myself."

"Not with suicide you're not," I said quickly, bringing her arm away from her head. I tried to reason with her, "Look, you're obviously a very smart person, there has to be something that you can do instead." I thought for a minute, "What did you do before you worked with him?" She thougth for a moment, letting the gun hand at her side.

"I probably would have gone into the medical field," she said slowly. "Limb replacement."

"Angel," Gazzy interrupted, "she can wait, we should probably see if there are any Robo-models left."

"Don't bother, they've all been destroyed," Saya told Gazzy. "They communicated with each other on a dedicated wireless network."

"What about the clones?" Frannie asked.

"They're still alive, but they won't awaken for about two weeks."

"Wait a second," Rex interjected, "why are you being so helpful all of a sudden? You're suppose to be one of the bad guys."

"Everything I ever loved is gone now," she said solumnly, "it died with him. Besides, as Macross here has explained, my core programing has apearently been reversed, the least I can do now is help all of you."

"Ok, then help destroy this place." She sighed.

"Very well, do you still have the shock braclet that Stephen put on the little one?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"We were just going to use bombs," Iggy said.

"I doubt anything you brought with you would be powerful enough to destroy the entire complex," she said wearily. "There are a couple power junctions next to the main generator, if those were overloaded the chain reaction would destroy every part of this place."

"What are we waiting for, let's do it!" Felicia said enthusiastically. She tried to get up, but she fell down again when she tried to put weight on her hurt leg.

"Unless you all want to be destroyed in the explosion," Saya explained, "that would not be good idea. The remote for the bracelet has very limited range, you would still be fairly close to the generator when it blew." She knelt next to the late Dr. Commodore, then reached into his coat and withdrew the remote. "I'll stay here and do it, you take your friend and leave, or you'll be buried when the cavern collapses."  
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	30. Chapter 30

I just stared, my eyes as wide as dinner plates. I'd seen someone die in front of me before, too many times too many, but it's still pretty horrific. I also kind of felt sorry for him. Gun wounds are horrible, and no one should ever have to die from them.

Eventually I looked up and saw Rex, Felicia and the Flock standing there, stunned expressions plastered on their faces.

"Is it over?" Rex asked uncertainly.

"Not yet," I said, glancing over at Saya. She was still standing there, her gun still pointed at the place where Commodore had been, "we still have to figure out what to do with her." I walked up to her, "Hey, are you all right?"

"Angel, be carefull," Gazzy said.

"Don't worry, I'll be alright," I said, turning to Gazzy. I turned back to Saya, "Are you OK?"

"N-no," she said meekly.

I touched her with my mind, trying to get a better picture of what was going on in her head. It was the strangest thing I'd ever felt. It was like there were two different halves, one being her human mind and the other being the robot half, but it felt as if they were both the same thing. It was like they were the same, but also like they were fighting with each other. Really weird.

"I was suppose to protect him, suppose to prevent him from dying, and now...." he voice trailed off. She put the gun to her head, "He gave me so much, I don't know how I'll ever forgive myself."

"Not with suicide you're not," I said quickly, bringing her arm away from her head. I tried to reason with her, "Look, you're obviously a very smart person, there has to be something that you can do instead." I thought for a minute, "What did you do before you worked with him?" She thougth for a moment, letting the gun hand at her side.

"I probably would have gone into the medical field," she said slowly. "Limb replacement."

"Angel," Gazzy interrupted, "she can wait, we should probably see if there are any Robo-models left."

"Don't bother, they've all been destroyed," Saya told Gazzy. "They communicated with each other on a dedicated wireless network."

"What about the clones?" Frannie asked.

"They're still alive, but they won't awaken for about two weeks."

"Wait a second," Rex interjected, "why are you being so helpful all of a sudden? You're suppose to be one of the bad guys."

"Everything I ever loved is gone now," she said solumnly, "it died with him. Besides, as Macross here has explained, my core programing has apearently been reversed, the least I can do now is help all of you."

"Ok, then help destroy this place." She sighed.

"Very well, do you still have the shock braclet that Stephen put on the little one?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"We were just going to use bombs," Iggy said.

"I doubt anything you brought with you would be powerful enough to destroy the entire complex," she said wearily. "There are a couple power junctions next to the main generator, if those were overloaded the chain reaction would destroy every part of this place."

"What are we waiting for, let's do it!" Felicia said enthusiastically. She tried to get up, but she fell down again when she tried to put weight on her hurt leg.

"Unless you all want to be destroyed in the explosion," Saya explained, "that would not be good idea. The remote for the bracelet has very limited range, you would still be fairly close to the generator when it blew." She knelt next to the late Dr. Commodore, then reached into his coat and withdrew the remote. "I'll stay here and do it, you take your friend and leave, or you'll be buried when the cavern collapses."  
---------


	31. Chapter 31

I tried to convince Saya to find another to destroy the lab, but she wouldn't have it. Eventually I gave up, much to Nudge's dismay. (She really don't like to leave people behind.) The guys acted a little more indifferent about it, but I could tell they hated leaving her as much as the rest of us.

"Are you sure we did the right thing leaving her?" Rex asked. He was carrying Leecy. "I know she was the enemy and all, but when she wasn't trying to kill us she didn't seem so bad."

"I know," I agreed, "I really hate having to do it, but she wouldn't gave an inch." I chuckled, "It kind of reminded me of Max."

"Don't let Max catch you saying that," Iggy said, leaning on my shoulder, "you know how she hates being compared to the enemy."

"I won't tell if you won't," I glanced at him menacingly, "and I'll know if you tell."

"Seriously though," Rex said, "are you sure there wasn't anything you could say to make her change her mind?"

"She said she had a way to escape when the generator blew," I pointed out. "Besides, If we don't destroy this place some other wakadoo might come along and use it to take over the world or something."

"Did Saya tell you that?" Nudge asked. No, that was actually just common sense.

"No," I said simply, "she didn't." OK, this conversation was starting to get depressing, time to shift gears. I looked over at Frannie, who was holding hands with Nudge, "I bet Mommy is going to be real surprised when she sees you again, won't she?"

Her face lit up so bright I tough I thought my eyes were going to burn out of their sockets.

"You betcha!" she said. "Mommy's gonna be really, super surprised."

It would be ever better for us because Max hated surprises.

---------

When all the mutants had left, Saya permanently sealed up the entrance and went to generator room to activate the dead-man's purge.

She had lied to them, there was another way to keep the lab from falling into anyones hands. Commodore had installed it when he built this place, saying that once his plan had been set into motion he would no longer need his lab. The purge was simple. It was designed to first send out an EMP pulse, wiping out every hard drive and memory unit, eliminating all records of his plan. It would then send out a power surge to all the equipment, frying the electronics and igniting the explosives inside them, leaving only rubble for anyone to find, should they bother to look. Finally, his house was wired to be set on fire, destroying all his files and severing any links between his model agency and his lab.

She hadn't liked having to lie to them, but they did understand her decision, they couldn't understand it. Besides, this was something she needed to do. Stephen Commodore was the first person outside of her techno-mania that she actually felt a connection with. Without him, her world was left broken and incomplete. She didn't want to live in a world like that. It would be a living hell.

When she got to the office she opened up one of the secret panels on his desk and keyed in the safety release for the purge. Sinse it had been only the two of them together for nearly seven years, they had each shared all the codes for the facility. She went through all the protection screens until it finally asked for her to set the timer for the purge. The minimum time was fixed at five minutes.

She left the timer at the minimum and pressed enter. The timer started counting down from five minutes. Four minutes, fifty-nine seconds. Fifty-eight, fifty-seven...

When the timer reached three minutes thirty-six seconds, she took her gun out of her pocket and put it to her head again, ready to see Commodore on ther other side, if there even was one. Two minutes, fifty-seven seconds.

She thought about what might happen if she didn't pull the trigger. She was still an expert in prosthetics, maybe ever the best on the planet. If she cleaned up her face, and used a new identity, she could enter medicine. With all the things that only she knew, she could help thousands, if not millions of people with her procedures. She might even win a Nobel for the work she could do. One minute, thirty-one seconds.

But it would all be empty, because the one man who could truly be proud of her, the man who had given her more than she could ever imagine, was dead. She couldn't bear to live without him. Ten seconds now.

With a final reserve of will, she gripped the gun tightly and inhaled sharply.

00:05, 00:04, 00:03, 00:02.

BANG!

00:01.  
----------

_Author's Note; That was dark, was it not? Hi there, Layman speaking. This is my first author's note for this story, and I'd just like to thank anyone who got this far for going the distance and not getting bored with me. I also have a few other things I'd like to say. Ahem...._

_1. Two things about this chapter I'd like to mention. First, I'm not sure if you noticed, but this is the only chapter that contains two different scenes. There's a little bit of pointless trivia for you to chew on. The second thing deals with the obvious suicide that the original character (OC) Saya commits because she kills Commodore. Let me say this right now, I DO NOT CONDONE IN ANY THE TAKING OF ONES' OWN LIFE! Now that that's out of the way, let me say that this chapter and the two or so before it were probably the hardest for me to put to paper. Not because I don't I'm not good at writing dark things like this, (I normally try to keep my characters alive in my stories), but because I couldn't think of the right words to describe the atmosphere. I could normally finish one chapter in a day as well as start the next one, but for some reason these last few chapters just took every fiber of my writers' being to keep going._

_2. The main story may be coming to a close, but that doesn't mean the Flock's life grinds to a halt, they just made three new friends for crying out loud. So I'm going to write a small afterwards soon, (sort of my way of paying homage to manga writers, who usually have extra content at the end of each book), as well as try to answer any questions you might have about anything in the story, (sort of my tribute to Fang's Blog as it appears in the books)._

_3. I mostly wrote this story to the soothing, melodic sounds of Linkin Park and other heavy stuff like that. I don't know why, but I felt very inspired while listening to them, and the message of their music has absolutely nothing to do with what I was writing in this story. If any of you fellow Maximum Ride fan fiction writers out there like Linkin Park, try writing with them on in the background, you might get inspired, I certainly did._

_And that's it. I hope you thought this story was pleasantly different from the normal Max Ride that everyone writes about, but with enough familiarity to not break the canon (so to speak). I welcome any and all reviews you have, as well as any critiques and comments that aren't meant solely to bash me. (If you honestly didn't like the story and would like to tell me calmly and rationally, I'd be happy to listen.) Also, if you could spread my penname out there a little, it would greatly appreciated._

_And now, without further adue, here is the last chapter...._


	32. Chapter 32

The next day we rolled in front of the Martinez house in the snazzy limo (we all had unanimously agreed to ditch the crap-mobile van we had before) we found in the garage at Commodore's house. Actually I should say that Rex, Macross (formerly Thud), Felicia, and Iggy rode in the limo, the rest of us were flying.

We landed next to the limo and helped Leecy and Iggy get out. All things considered, the two of them getting shot actually worked to their advantage. While I was helping Iggy out of the lab, I caught him looking over at Felicia a couple of times, and he told me that he thought it was pretty amazing the way she fought off the maniacal robo-chick when he got shot. I told him that she thought he was amazing too, and he practically flipped for joy. That is, if he wasn't still in pain from a bullet wound.

Long story short, they rode in the car together the entire way back. (With Macross keeping an eye on them.)

Now where was I?

Oh, right, the house. You know who was sitting outside when we got there? That's right, not Max! Seriously though, it was Ella. Yup, she was back. Remember, she was at an away soccer game when this whole debacle started? She was sitting next to the large tree in our front yard, petting her pet Beagle, Mutton Chops. (Sadly, Magnolia died about five years ago.)

"Ella!" I called from the street, waving.

"Angel!" she gasped, running over to hug me. "Where have you been, I've been so worried. I got back and Fang said that Frannie had been kidnapped, and that you were going after her, and Max was really worried, and..." She stopped to catch her breath. (She must have been hanging out with Nudge without my realizing it.) Then she noticed the other guys getting out of the car. "Who are they?" she asked quizzically.

"These are Rex, Felicia, and Macross," I said, pointing them out in turn.

"Hi," Rex said, "we're with them."

"Them?" Ella said, confused. When she didn't see anybody else on the ground she looked up, and saw the Gasman, Nudge, and Frannie flying down to meet us. "Frannie!" she gasped.

"You were expecting Ozzy Osbourne?" She said as she landed next to Ella. Yep, she was definitely Max's kid.

"Oh, I was so worried about you when I heard," Ella said, embracing her. "Come on," she said, suddenly taking Frannies' hand and pulling her inside, "Max has been practically beside herself for days, she'd just be ecstatic to have you back." She barged though the door and ran up the stairs, practically ripping it off it's hinges. When she reach the top of the stairs, (Max and Fang insisted that they have a room with a skylight), she shouted, "Max, Max, come here, I've got a surprise for you!"

When Max didn't answer Ella peeked into the door of her room. Max was sprawled out, face down on the bed. Her wing were open, lazily hanging over either side of the bed. "What?" she said, her voice muffled by the pillow on her face.

"What do you mean 'what?'," Ella said, stepping into the room. "I said I had a surprise for you, so get your lazy butt out of bed and come see it already."

"Ella," Max said dangerously, turning around, "if you think some half-hearted attempt to cheer me up right now has even a remote chance of working, than you've got another thing..." Her voice trailed off.

She looked passed Ella into the hallway, where Frannie was standing in the doorway. In that moment all the anger, worry, and pain from the past few days just melted away. In it's place was sheer joy.

"...coming," she finished, tears welling up in her eyes. By this time then rest of us had gathered outside her door. (Except for Iggy and Leecy, they were getting looked at by Dr. Martinez downstairs.)

Then, all of a sudden, she rushed forward and embraced Frannie for all she was worth. "Frances Kim Martinez," she said through her sobs, "Don't you ever, ever leave me again."

"I won't, Mommy," she said. "I just want to be with you and Daddy forever."

"Where is Fang, anyways?" I asked. I opened my mind to see if he was somewhere else in the house, but the only people inside were us, Iggy, Leecy, and Mom.

"Oh my God, Fang. He went out to search for Frannie after you left," Max said, realizing they were still missing one member of the Flock. They a smile krept onto her face. She looked down at Frannie, "You want to go find Daddy?"

Frannie nodded eagerly. Max looked back up at the rest of us. "You'll have to introduce me to your new freinds later," she told us, "I need to go my husband."

Still holding onto Frannie, she spread her wings and burst through the skylight. (Don't worry, it's hinged.)

"Hey Angel, where do you keep the food in this place?" Gazzy asked. "I'm starving."

********

And that's what happened.

To cut a long story short, Max and Frannie eventually found Fang, and many, many hugs were exchanged. When they finally got home, most of us were already asleep. Only me, Mom (Dr. Martinez), and Ella were still awake. We talked for most of the night, mainly about my adventures. It must have been about three in the morning when we finally went to bed.

Two days later Jeb returned home (he was on a two week buisness trip) and we all told him about the little adventure. How Frannie was kidnapped, how I met Rex, Leecy and Macross, how the evil mastermind behind it use to work at the School, and lots more. He laughed and asked how he missed all the fun, and told us how he was glad we were all safe.

Iggy and Leecy healed up in a few days, and were soon back on their feet. They eventually anounced that they were going steady and have been going strong for about four months, as of this writing.

Nudge went back California to finish up on the movie she was doing, (she later told us that she skipped out on it to help us find Frannie). Seven months later she called us up and invited us all to the premiere. I don't remember much about the movie, (it was some Sci-Fi/Fantasy epic), but I remember Nudge being amazing. There were at least three different races in the movie, and her character was the leader of a race that had wings. (Type-cast I know, but really, who else could nail something like that?)

Eventually Iggy and Gazzy went back to L.A., and Rex, Felicia, and Macross went with them. Leecy just tagged along because Iggy was going, but I guess guys thought Gazzy and Iggy's freinds sounded cool or something. (I really have to asked Fang about what happened when he was in L.A.)

As for me life goes on. I attend college (I got there on my own merits, I swear), I hang out with my friends, I have dinner with my family at night, and sometimes I get to talk with the rest of the Flock. It isn't the same as it was ten years ago, but it's growing on me. I mean, I have parents, I have a niece, I made three new friends who understand me almost as well as the Flock. All things considered life has turned out pretty good, despite the lumps.

Anyways, that about wraps up this little adventure. I have to go now, Iggy and Leecy are visiting and he and Mom are making Italian food tonight. So as lond as Max doesn't try to help....

Fin.


End file.
